The manner in which content or information is presented to a user has a considerable effect on the user's ability to efficiently process the outputted or presented content and/or interact with the presented user interface. In particular, the arrangement of the presented content or user interface affects the usability and/or processing of the presented data or content. Moreover, it is also advantageous to provide for customization of the presented content by the user so that the user can modify the placement of the presented content.
To better aid in the understanding of the inventive concept, the example of a customizable HTML-based photo album display page is given below.
Today, most web pages and web based applications are relatively static as compared to computer-based applications. In other words, a user is not typically able to alter web page content in any straightforward or easy manner. In fact, most web pages are intentionally unalterable. The only customization that is typically provided to an end user is the ability to add and delete visual items from a page. For example, many web-based photo album web pages exist today. However, users are typically only permitted to add new digital photos to the page, whereupon the photos are displayed in the order in which they were added. Typically, the user is also able to delete selected photos from the photo album web page, in which case the remaining photos are merely shifted to fill in the blanks created by the deleted photos.
Prior systems, such as DHTML and Javascript, allow a user to rearrange items on a page; however, none of the prior are systems store a persistent state of arrangement of the items or objects on the back end.
Thus, there exists a need for providing the user with a user-friendly and flexible way to modify the arrangement of presented content, such as digital photographs, in an interactive presentation, such as an HTML based web page.